A Bollywood spy thriller set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan civil war has been pulled from British and some Indian cinemas after protests over its depiction of rebel fighters.
Madras Café, which opened last week in the UAE, features John Abraham as an Indian secret agent sent to Sri Lanka during the country’s decades-long conflict between the government and separatist Tamil rebels. But the film has failed to reach a number of cinema halls after ethnic Tamil populations in India and Britain complained that they were unfairly portrayed.
“Our UK exhibitors, Cineworld, decided to hold the film after protesters gathered outside their UK offices,” said Rudrarup Datta, the marketing head of the film’s Indian distributor Viacom18 Motion Pictures. Indian media reports said theatres also refused to show the film in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu after protests from its largely Tamil population.
In Britain, an online petition was launched, calling for the film to be banned there because it was believed to portray Tamils “in a poor light”. (AFP)
